


the entire history of human desire

by antarcticas



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula (Avatar)-centric, Canon Compliant, Child Azula (Avatar), Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, F/F, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:53:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29776440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antarcticas/pseuds/antarcticas
Summary: Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It's like a religion. It's terrifying.“It’s pretty,” she says.“No, it’s not,” Azula says quickly. “It’s scary.”“It’s scary and pretty,” Ty Lee replies, fiery reflections crafting a story in her irises. “Like you.”
Relationships: Azula & Mai & Ty Lee, Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 89





	the entire history of human desire

we were inside the train car when I started to cry. you were crying too,  
smiling and crying in a way that made me  
even more hysterical. you said I could have anything I wanted, but I  
just couldn’t say it out loud.

###  **actually, you said _Love,_** _for you,_

_is larger than the usual romantic love. it’s like a religion. it’s_ _  
terrifying. no one  
will ever want to sleep with you._

 _—_ richard siken, litany in which certain things are crossed out

* * *

Azula meets Ty Lee when she is five-years-old. The young child is already an acrobat, and Azula—Azula is enthralled by the way she dances in the air, the way she tells stories as her limbs free fall through the sky. Azula stomps outside during lunch break one day and all the children at her school wait with bated breath as she defines their futures—if they have successfully captivated the Fire Princess, the prodigy who defines this nation, they will be granted salvation.

She stalks past the girls and boys she knows from haughty dinners, the ones which bow and cater to her whims. She walks right to the girl who has stayed this whole time in her own world, dancing and giggling at the way the grass is green and the sky is blue, who loves the world as it is.

Azula chooses Ty Lee because she is the only choice to make.

* * *

Mai joins them a year later, a bored child who enjoys playing with objects; knives, people. It’s all the same. Azula can respect that, can respect Mai—she dislikes Mai’s obsession with her brother, but she thinks it is fine. She encourages it. If Mai loves Zuzu, Mai will always belong to her.

There are already whispers at the palace about her. She knows them, the vipers which crawl through the halls. She knows that she is only six and yet too hardened, too rough, not _good._ She is not enough for Mother, who loves Zuko with every part of her aching heart.

She is good enough for father when she starts to bend when Zuko does, despite being two years younger. One day Prince Ozai calls his daughter to his chambers, alone, and lifts her up into his lap. She tilts her head at him, and he whispers into her ear that she is his favorite.

Azula thinks that of her parents, her father may be her favorite. Her father does not think there is something wrong with her. If there is something wrong with her, it is wrong with him too. And yet Father is infallible.

Her flames are red, orange, yellow at first, and then one day at her lessons they turn a brilliant, brilliant blue. Bluer than water, heated. Azula’s fire is everything that she is. Strategic, fluid, victorious. For her hands burn like no one else’s.

She shows Mai and Ty Lee one day when they play in the courtyard. Mai looks the slightest bit terrified of the fire and then pushes away, her gaze directed to the side where Zuko suffers through meditative practices Azula perfected years ago. Azula almost understands why. Something in her chest unravels, some monster which had pride; _you are powerful, child—_ and also shame; _you are monstrous, child._

But while Mai has Zuko, Ty Lee always has Azula. Ty Lee looks at Azula’s burning fingers with curiosity in her wide eyes, her dirty hair falling across her forehead. She twists into a strange sort of lunge to lean further into it, to study the conjured flames.

“It’s pretty,” she says.

“No, it’s not,” Azula says quickly. “It’s scary.”

“It’s scary and pretty,” Ty Lee replies, fiery reflections crafting a story in her irises. “Like you.”

Azula feels something rush up to her cheeks, and her flames withdraw. “Oh,” she says, because Ty Lee is the only one who can render her speechless, for some reason she does not want to discern. “It’s hot.”

Ty Lee collapses onto the grass, and after a heartbeat and a second passes Azula joins her, dirtying her crimson robes, meeting Ty Lee on her level. “Your aura feels different now!” she says in that way of hers, the one that is so enthused with the happenings of the world, the one that makes Azula think this girl with the big grey eyes may be the only person in the world who sees her, not the person on the other side of her. Not the monster.

“That’s good, right?”

“It’s—” Ty Lee holds her breath. “It’s different. It feels as though you’re different, but good. It feels as though everything is about to change.”

* * *

A lot changes.

Azula burns a doll. Lu Ten, who she has not seen since she was four, is proclaimed dead. Uncle Iroh refuses to avenge his death. She impresses Grandfather. Father talks to Grandfather.

Mother tells her that there is something wrong with her. At night she feels soft lips on her cheek, and when she wakes up the world is different. Now, there is no mother; now there is simply Father and Zuko and Azula.

And Uncle Iroh, but she doesn’t know where he is. It doesn’t matter. Like the others, Uncle has always favored Zuko.

Mother loves Zuko. Uncle loves Zuko. Lu Ten loved Zuko. Mai loves Zuko. But it doesn’t matter. Father favors Azula.

Ty Lee loves Azula.

Azula does not want to lose the one thing she does have.

Ty Lee is one of seven sisters, and Azula has seen the rest. Their mother cannot tell them apart, but Azula could find Ty Lee in a crowd of thousands. She knows Ty Lee, knows the bounce in her step and the tilt of her smile. To her, Ty Lee is special.

Ty Lee is not like the other simpering nobles who look at her bending prowess—who understand that she is a prodigy—and kiss her boots. Ty Lee does not see Azula the prodigy, she sees Azula the girl with the pretty flames. One day they sneak out through the palace’s back door to the gardens. It’s cold, and Ty Lee shivers. Azula sets a tree on fire.

Mother would have called her a monster, but Ty Lee holds close to that warmth and simply says _thank you._ The servants find their princess in front of a charred block of coal hours later, a pink-clothed figure laid across her lap, braid undone.

Ty Lee is scared she is not special. Azula will give her the world in order to show her that she is.

* * *

Azula defeats Zuko at all things.

She will be a better bender than him, she will do better at school, she will run faster and be more decisive. Zuko may be able to use dual blades, but those don’t matter. Azula is a prodigal firebender. She’s not weak—she doesn’t need to use the weapons of a commoner.

One day she does her katas after school. Mai has taken up a strange fascination once again with her knives, fighting with blades rather than sheer power. Perhaps she and Zuzu are made for each other. Mai leaves her to find him, and then Azula is left jumping in the air with Ty Lee to her side.

Ty Lee has grown into her love for acrobatics. She can contort her body in ways that look incredibly uncomfortable, and yet she eases into them. Azula is not like her mother or Zuko, who have a strange fascination with theater and dance, who love to see what humans can make of themselves. She hates dramatics. But admiring Ty Lee is like appreciating an exhibit at a museum; something unbreakable, something she is afraid to touch. And the world bends to Azula’s whims.

She pushes Ty Lee over when she stops next to her in a handstand, anyway, and they both laugh. Then Azula steps out of her form and grabs Ty Lee’s warm hand. “Show me how to do that.”

“Okay,” Ty Lee says, and then frowns. “But why do you need to? You’re an amazing firebender, ‘Zula. You don’t need to cartwheel with me.”

Only Ty Lee is allowed to call Princess Azula ‘Zula’.

“Of course I don’t,” Azula sniffs, “but it’s not combat—just pretense. In fact,” she states haughtily, “you ought to be able to defend yourself better.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that if you intend to do well in this world, you should be able to defend yourself. And you can’t cartwheel away from . . . a bender who would attack you.”

Ty Lee’s ever-present smile falters, and her bangs flash in front of her eyes. “Why would someone attack me?”

“I don’t know,” Azula closes her hands over Ty Lee’s wrists, maintaining sharp eye contact. “But you should know how to protect yourself.” _I want you to stay safe._

“Okay,” Ty lee holds her tightly. “What should I do, ‘Zula? I don’t want to use weapons or sharp things or . . . things that can hurt people. I don’t want to hurt people. I just want to stay safe and stop people.”

“I’ll figure it out,” she says, because she will. Azula will. Azula spends that entire night in the library, reading up about the chi paths which run though her body, through all bodies. She goes back generations, back to the times of Avatar Lua, and uncovers dusty tomes about warriors who could control these paths; lithe, strong, defensive.

She does not want Ty Lee to hurt others. Azula hurts others. Azula can take that pain, take that heart-hurt, and place it somewhere deep inside her chest. She does not want Ty Lee to do the same.

Azula can take on the agony of a nation for Ty Lee. Azula will. She gives the books to Ty Lee the next morning. Ty Lee will not become a monster.

Monsters cannot love. And then Azula would be left with nothing.

* * *

When Azula is eleven Father burns Zuko, and she watches.

She can scent burned ash, the aura of molten skin. She cannot feel anything. It pains. Ty Lee and Mai are not there—she’s glad for the latter, but when she presses her face to her silk pillow as her brother is carted away, she wishes Ty Lee was; she wishes Ty Lee was not at her home. She does not know what will happen next.

She tries to find Zuko. She hates her brother, but she is scared for his life. By then, it’s too late. Uncle Iroh, that traitor, has taken him away.

Azula needs to be loved. Azula needs to be loved—

She is halfway through the palace gates before Li finds her and takes her to her father. Azula fixes her bangs, holding them back from her face, as she enters the war room where her father sits behind fire. She bows. She knows what motions to progress through, how to create herself, how to carve a queen into an observer.

“Your brother has been disgraced, Azula,” she is told.

She does not say anything.

“You have always been an exemplary child, Azula,” she is told.

She does not say anything.

“You are now the Crown Princess, Azula,” she is told.

Father favors her, but Ty Lee calls her ‘Zula.

“Thank you, Father,” she looks at the crown. “I will live up to your legacy.”

“You will indeed,” now Azula looks up at her father, his head held high. This angle, the darkness—it is all meant to make him seem powerful, like a god. But Fire Lord Ozai is not Agni. And Azula is not scared of him like she is of fate. Azula is not scared for herself.

In the flames, flying higher and higher, Azula sees her destiny.

* * *

A year later, Azula wonders if she could love.

Mai moves to Omashu, her father relocated by the Fire Lord. Ozai had known they had intended for their daughter to be the next Fire Lady, and he nipped their anger as its unfeeling bud. Azula does not even say goodbye to Mai.

Mai loves Zuko, not her. She’d known this, but the look in the girl’s eyes still angers her. 

It is fine. It is all fine. They graduate from school—Azula is at the top of her class, Ty Lee in the middle. They go to a state celebration to celebrate. Mai is not there so Azula stays attached to Ty Lee, though she hopes others think the opposite. Ty Lee is bubbly and bright, and girls and boys alike are pulled to her by pure attraction. All those who want Azula are sycophants.

All but Ty Lee.

Ty Lee wears a dress in pink, as Azula’s is crimson. Azula is covered, serene, separate from the rest. Ty Lee’s shoulders are bare, her hair is down, riotous waves over her shoulders, and she grins and flexes her fingers. Azula feels peace, because she is the one who has placed power into those hands, hands that belong to her. Ty Lee may be the picture of elegant grace, but she will destroy anyone who touches her.

As the night goes on, Azula cannot take her eyes away from her friend. Ty Lee is so pretty, and also so nervous, flitting around the appetizers and fluttering as she sits, stately, next to Azula at dinner. Something strange sinks into her chest, and when her father calls the official toast and his voice reverberates through Azula’s head, she finds herself grasping warm fingers in her own. The tablecloth is black, and they seated on low cushions. Azula links hands with Ty Lee to ground herself, becomes one with the girl who can fly to keep herself sane, and she finds peace there.

After the party Azula invites Ty Lee up late to her room; her mother is no longer around to police her sleepovers, and Li and Lo’s suggestions are easily turned over by Azula’s icy gaze. She closes the door behind them and they fall onto Azula’s bed. Azula finds herself laying her head on Ty Lee’s stomach. The warmth there feels like home. Her hair has been meticulously put into place, but Ty Lee runs her fingers through it like water and fixes every errant strand.

“What next,” Ty Lee asks after a second, her voice low. She seems a bit tired. “Are we old now, ‘Zula? We’re still children. We’re just twelve.”

Zuko had been thirteen when Father had banished him.

“I’ll have to help father with the siege on Ba Sing Se, I know that,” Azula turns on her side until the left side of her face is muffled into the cotton of Ty Lee’s pink dress. “Will you go with your family, too? Like Mai?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she breathes, and Azula can almost detest that tone; she wants to give Ty Lee a decision, not a choice. “I can’t stay at home, I just can’t. It feels like nobody sees me there. Nobody understands me. They just look through me.”

“I see you,” Azula says.

“I know,” Ty Lee says, brushing her bangs away from her face. Then she pushes to the side until they’re both leaning against the head of the bed, legs matching each other. “I kind of want to leave.”

“What do you mean?” Azula asks. Azula always understands problems before she proposes solutions, before she makes decisions.

“I saw a pamphlet for a circus—a travelling one, in the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom—and they were looking for a trapeze artist. And I saw the drawing they had on it, and I can do all of that! And can you just imagine . . . imagine _travelling!”_

“You want to . . .” Azula struggles, “join a travelling circus? With . . . with animals and those strange hideous creatures wearing paint and . . .”

Ty Lee turns to her, grey eyes wide, and presses their hands together. “I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous! But . . .”

“But you’re ridiculous,” Azula smiles, some kind of warmth in her stomach, before the corners of her mouth drop. “But I’d thought you’d stay with me.”

“I’ll . . . oh,” Ty Lee’s thumb runs over Azula’s palm. “Mai left, and you’re fine.”

“You’re different than Mai,” Azula admits. “You should stay.”

There is little vitriol in those words. Ty Lee loves Azula. She cannot find it in herself to raise her voice at Ty Lee, or keep her away from happiness. If Ty Lee does not choose her, the world is for naught.

“I really like you, ‘Zula,” Ty Lee says, “but I really want to go. And I think I’ll come back, too, and I’ll always be here if you really, really need me. But before school is done and my parents try to make me get married or something I’d want to do something for fun, something I like, do something my sisters can’t and—”

“I do,” Azula’s lips quiver, because she didn’t think she had the capacity to say those words, but now they are searing through her soul. How does she explain—how does she put into words, everything that Ty Lee means to her? Ty Lee sees the world in a rainbow of colors and sounds and auras, and she sees Azula as someone who enjoys spending time with her. Ty Lee thinks Azula is pretty and smart and scary and perfect and poetic. Who else will think those things of Azula without Ty Lee?

And without those stupid, stupid words, those failed plays on words, who will Azula have left?

Crown Princess Azula of the Fire Nation is a selfish, selfish girl. “I need you,” she says proudly. For one can say a lot about Azula but none should ever doubt her dedication to what she pursues.

“Oh,” Ty Lee says, mouth open wide, much too close. “But you’re Azula! I can’t . . . I can’t help you more than you can help yourself, ‘Zula! You’re the most powerful firebender in the world. You’ll be fine.”

“What if someone came after you?” Azula grasps at straws. Ty Lee points up her fingers, and Azula wants to choke.

Fate handed her the cards to play her own demise. Fate told her that she could build a person up into a sculpture she could adore and end up cracking marble anyway.

Azula is always victorious but she knows she has lost. “When will you go?”

Ty Lee crawls into herself, hair hanging off her shoulders, lips down. “The circus leaves tomorrow, and I have to pack up my bags. I just want to—”

Azula reaches forward and presses her lips against Ty Lee. It’s not the kind of kiss she has read about in the romance scrolls that Zuko kept under his bed; it is not earth-shattering, and it is just a touch of lips, smooth with lipstick and licked out of anxiety. But what matters more is the intent of a gesture, the only way she can say love, the only way she can let loose a part of her and hope it returns.

After that, they do not say a single word. The next time they meet, two years later, neither remembers such a moment that took place outside a dream.

* * *

When she is sent after Zuko and the Avatar, she seeks out Ty Lee first. She has changed in the absence of her sanity—she has become something she knows is terrible. She, perhaps, has become a monster; what else can one call a girl who has nothing but a father who favors her?

And Fire Lord Ozai’s favor is not something easily won. Azula is prodigal, so she learns how to direct lightning. She puts all of her feelings into a box to do so, takes the Azula who played with her friends in the fountain, the one who kissed Ty Lee in her bed, the one who does not want to bend to her father, and puts it away.

Bending lightning is easy. To bend lightning, you need peace in your soul. For some that means a resolution, it means taking love and anger and fear and molding it into a conduit of space and time. For Azula, it means forgetting everything but her broken, bleeding heart. She could electrify herself.

So the Azula who seeks out Ty Lee is not the same Azula. This Azula has a goal—find the Avatar. That is all she cares about, not anything as arbitrary as love. She is not so stupid as to believe that someone could be impassioned by a monster.

Still, a small smile crawls to her face when she feels Ty Lee in her arms again. She is warm, as always—Azula is a firebender and yet for some reason Ty Lee always runs hot—and she is soft, and she is smiling.

Sometimes, Azula thinks she is the worst of human desire. Sometimes, Azula thinks Ty Lee is the best of it.

* * *

###  _**the entire history of human desire** takes about seventy minutes to tell._

unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.

—richard siken, litany in which certain things are crossed out

**Author's Note:**

> i'm currently up in the air about adding a second part to this - not sure if it's worth it, but i also want to complete the message of the poem into a post-boiling rock story about the way azula loves. let me know if you'd like that!


End file.
